On the first concert of its 2019 season, at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 17, MidAmerica Productions, as part of its 36th annual concert season, will present the Carnegie Hall debuts of three choirs from Kansas, the geographic center of the contiguous United States.
Dr. Bradley Vogel, Director of Choral Activities at Tabor College in Hillsboro, will lead an ensemble of more than 100 voices, including his own Tabor College Concert Choir, along with members of the WHS Crusader Choir from Wellington and the Berean Singers from Elbing, in the Sunrise Mass by contemporary composer Ola Gjeilo. The New England Symphonic Ensemble will serve as the orchestra for the performance.
“Both Jessica Coldwell, Director of the WHS Crusader Choir, and Sara Morris, Director of the Berean Singers, studied and sang with me at Tabor College,” comments Dr. Vogel, “so our trip to Carnegie Hall will also serve as an unofficial reunion of sorts.”
Sara Morris, director of the Berean Singers, said,“The Berean Singers are excited to perform for the first time in the Big Apple at Carnegie Hall. We’re working hard to do justice to Ola Gjeilo’s inspiring music, and to do Kansas proud. Thank you to the students, parents, and Berean community for making this opportunity possible.”
“I find the Sunrise Mass intriguing and appealing in a number of ways,” says Dr. Vogel. “I appreciate the composer’s journey of the sacred texts as moving from the heavens to the Earth — really the essence of God’s work for humankind in the incarnation: God to Earth. I chose it for reasons equally musical and educational—as something that would be a personal challenge to me, and to the choir, helping us both to grow.”
As a public “thank you” to the community for its support of the New York concert trip, Dr. Vogel will lead a free performance on Sunday, March 10 at 7 pm, in the Shari Flaming Center for the Arts on the Tabor College campus. All three participating choirs will reprise their Carnegie Hall program with a professional orchestra, which also will perform Barber’s Adagio for Strings. For additional information, contact Dr. Bradley Vogel at bradv@tabor.edu or 620-947-3121 ext. 1402.
